Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Wed, 5 Nov 1997 16:40:20 +0100
Hugo wrote:.
> My problem with this is that there are so very many social values at play
> in nature, wolf-packs for instance, that I fail to see this social
> structuring as something specifically human. It seems to me that what you
> call the emergence of the social level, I would call the first traces of
> the intellectual level. I don't find the breakthrough to humanity in the
> social but in the intellectual. Having said that, I am not at all certain
> when exactly the social level did emerge; as I have said before there are
> huge differences inside the levels too, from the very first crude form of
> sociality to the complex social lives of mammals for instance. My only
> guide in stating when the levels arose in our evolutionary history is the
> definition I have given of the levels. Hence, if you disagree with these
> definitions I have no further arguments for my statement.
>
Oh yes, there are countless facets of the static social level, and I
find it much easier to use the negative definition: whatever curbs
biological value is social value. No, neither do I think it is
limited to the human species, but only at our elevated plane does it
reach proportions like the country and state. Your proverbial wolf is
far more "subject" to its pack (an ant is indistinguishable
from it) than a modern human being is of his/her family, tribe, clan,
country....whatever, but nevertheless are we termined by our social
relations. And I agree; it is the Intellect which is the specific
human endeavour and also that its manifestations ("culture" according
to Pirsig) is horribly difficult to distinguish from societal ones.
Particularly now that Intellect dominates the (western) scene so
much.
> I can follow your hesitation towards my use of the term mind here, and I
> should have been more careful. When I read Bateson I loved his placing
> human mind inside the larger mind of nature, but I actually revolted
> towards his sharp distinction between mind and matter, and I do believe
> that you are right that he is wrong on this. My solution then was the idea
> that 'things with properties' were not what actually existed, 'relations'
> were primary. And in this I actually followed Bateson, because I think he
> was on to this in his talk of information as 'differences that make a
> difference' and not least in his discussions of what properties are (second
> last part of first chapter in Mind and Nature, f.i.) and more. This is
> where I part with Køppe as well; in his book he is discussing the iterative
> analysis of systems into subsystems and their relations, and he rejects the
> idea that systems were 'all relations' because there would be 'nothing at
> the bottom then' (I dont recall his exact words). Køppe sticks to some sort
> of materialism with undividable objects or particles at the bottom, and if
> you read my first reference to Mind and Nature above, you will see that
> Bateson did the same, at least at that time. If one dares to explore the
> 'its all relations' ontology, one will necessarily end up in a MoQ-like
> structure, and at some point of reading LILA it dawned upon me that that
> was what Pirsig was on about.
I found the passage in Bateson's book starting on page 101 "Criteria
of Mental Process" where he starts by demonstrating that only
differences can be perceived and further that everything is
relationship. Nothing of this is at odds with the MOQ, after all its
main thesis is that value is the only ingredient of reality, and if
anything is value differences/relations. I got so worked up over the
obvious similarity between Charles Peirce (as interpreted by Jesper
Hoffmeyer) and Pirsig that I contacted JH and pointed to the fact
that the Quality idea and the semiotic "sign" are different versions
of the same break with the SOM. However, I am not sure if Hoffmeyer
understand the magnitude of even his own paragon.
> There really is no easy way out of our problem with using SOM like language
> to discuss and describe MoQ like ideas, but I dont think we disagree on the
> above, Bodvar. Thanks for adressing these issues.
Right you are, but language is the world's most elastic thing, it
takes on whatever load we want it to carry. In my essay I speak of
the pre- and post Copernican use of the adverbs up/down. We still use
them, but no longer in the absolute sense of the Ptolemaian
cosmology. The Subject/Object absoluteness of the mind/matter-
related terms may be replaced by Quality's relativity. Not easily but
eventually. Believe it or not, when I was little an old aunt of mine
refused to believe that there were people "with their feet up" on the
othe side of the earth - four hundred years after Copernicus!!! It
shows that changes of this magnitude are not easily accepted.
Take a look at my response to Martin Stritz about the Big Bang
theory. Comments?
Bo
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:13 CEST